"The forensic historian . . . searches the past for material applicable to a current issue. The purpose of the advocate . . . is to use the past for the elucidation of the present, to solve some contemporary problem or, most often, to carry an argument. It is the past put in the service of winning the case at bar."
— Historian

January 1, 1970

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Added on April 10, 2026
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HistoriansHistory
Original Language: English

Sources

John Philip Reid, “The Jurisprude of Liberty: The Ancient Constitution in the Legal Histiography of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”, in “the Roots of Liberty: Magna Carta, Ancient Constitutions, and the Anglo-American Tradition of Rule of Law”, ed. Ellis Sandox (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993), 167. as quoted on Thomas R. Kearns (August 2002). History, Memory, and the Law. University of Michigan Press. p.3